Nostalgia is one of the most powerful feelings we have. We are drawn to it, and we crave it all the time. Every generation and every era has a moment or a sound that has become so iconic that it immediately will remind you of your past. Like in the 80s with kids growing up watching Star Wars in theaters. Like in the 90s with wrestling fans seeing the ascension of Stone Cold Steve Austin. In the 2010s, we recently saw the rise of the Marvel franchise and the Avengers films. All of these products will be nostalgic for many years to come.
I talked to Psychologist Rob Couch to get a breakdown of what Nostalgia truly is.
“Nostalgia is having this good memory or good feeling from something in your past. It could be like an experience, a concert, a show, a movie, a game, anything like that. Anything that brings you good memories and a good feeling that you want to have repeated and you hope to have repeated.”
Couch continues sharing why the human brain is so drawn to it.
“The Human Brain tends to latch on to the best and the worst experiences in your life. So, in a normal day, it’s not usually going to be all good or all bad. But Nostalgia targets a time where one of the days was all good.”
Couch concludes with what he believes is currently the most potent method of Nostalgia in modern-day media.
“I would say concepts from movies and video games are being reused and updated to the time. The most recent example is Spider-Man: No Way Home, covering the past couple of decades of Spider-Man and updating it to match the current times of Marvel movies. They also brought some features and callbacks in that trigger nostalgia from watching the older movies back in the day.”
Nostalgia may be a feeling that fills you with joy and memories, but it also is a business.
To get an idea of how Nostalgia has been used in businesses, I spoke to Events Organizer and DJ Derek Schwartzentruber on occurrences of Nostalgia he has noticed in his industry.
“I’ve been doing this for 27 years. So, it’s cool cause I’ve been doing teen dances and weddings. I’m big in the wedding industry. Now, the music I am playing at the weddings is not the fifties and sixties that I was playing when I started 28 years ago. I’m playing music at weddings that I was playing at the teen dances in schools from when I started as a DJ. Usually, what they want to hear at weddings, is what they grew up listening to.”
Schwartzentruber continues with why old music is so popular:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8rShJxIH6Y
So, whether your nostalgia buzz comes from an old favorite coming back in a new movie or a classic song that reminds you of the good old days. Nostalgia hits us all, and it will always remind us of how great the past has been.
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